Images of a Legend
SMITH RESCUED BY POCAHONTAS
1870, Christian Inger (after Edward Corbould)
While some 19th-century images of Pocahontas highlighted her
marriage to John Rolfe, countless others focused instead on her
feelings toward John Smith. Most historians doubt that a
full-fledged romance ever existed between Pocahontas and Smith, but
this notion was widely spread in the early 19th century, sparked by
writer John Davis, who transformed Pocahontas into the heroine of an
elaborate romantic narrative. This 1870 lithograph shows a
Pocahontas typical of such representations—Europeanized and
overly nubile for an adolescent girl. It also bears inaccuracies
common in late 19th-century artwork, when headdresses, horses, and
tepees (the latter not seen in this detail), which are trappings of
Western Plains cultures, became generic icons for all "Indians."